JetPiedmont

Is this a conversation about "barriers to entry"? That is what the regulated airline environment pre-1978 consisted of, along with minimum fare structures and route authority.

It would prevent new entrants, and as the weaker ones go OOB over time, it could help the viability of the others by reducing supply and competition. Barriers to entry is a key criteria of large investors deciding where to invest. It could bring new investment capital into the industry.

CE750

Not at all, we went too far with de-regulation, we just need to swing the pendulum back a bit... something like a pulbic utility where price is fixed by a regulatory body, but there can be as many entrants as the market will accept.

The pricing can be based on level of service, and proximity to major cities, etc..

Call me what you want, but I think there are certain things that are simply too capital intensive for "free market" capitalism.

PCL_128

I disagree with CE750. I think we need a complete return to the days of the CAB where new entrants were minimized and route authority required approval by the CAB. Minimum fares and subsidies where necessary. The "free market" doesn't work in commercial passenger aviation.

Wingnutt

I agree. Look around today. . .

yoke jerker

if the taxpayers would not allow city gov't to give away subsidies, you wouldn't have skybus or others that depend on handouts..

the free market isn't kind to pilot pay...that's a given... lowballing for a product or service is something not unique to the airline industry... inevery mfg'ing field, when joe blow comes in with a price on widgets at 5 dollars less per thousand, patty rottencrotch, the buyer sits up in her chair. she becomes a hero and they go to lunch, and joe gets the order... but after a few orders the price steadily creeps back up.. it's the oldest sales scam going...

just like tickets... 10 dollar tickets, they're out ... oh my segment cost $165, well i guess we'll go to columbus anyway

CE750

I don't see it that way.. there needs to be a sustainability to the business model and this free for all isn't it.. AGAIN, not saying we need to go to total control, but we need to swing the pendulum back a bit.

JetPiedmont

I don't think any sort of re-regulation will result in anything close to the pre-1978 regulated environment either. That whole approach to business is dead in this country, resulting in the mess we have now for both employees and pax.

DeReg was brought on to provide mass-transit airline-style, and we have "acheived" that now. We're all domestic versions of Freddie Laker's SkyTrain. Jimmy Carter paved the way for model, and then he and Alfred Kahn brought it to the US domestic scene.

With mass-transit airline-style you get the huge capacity increases, and the aviaition infra-structure is now overwhelmed. Denver was the first new airport in the US since DFW, and new runways at existing airports are rare. Don't expect much help there.

Example:
The Queen of England was at the opening of the new BA terminal at Heathrow this week, lauding it as an investment that would "revolutionize the experience of flying into London...". Guess she doesn't know about all the delays due to holding, diversions and gridlock on the airport's surface that won't much care about their beautiful new terminal. But that's the politician's view of aviation, and that's a large part of the problem.

CE750

Another major problem, and I've been saying this for almost as long as I've been in this industry... so long as RJ's are flying routs that should be flown by main line, both pilots and the airspace will ever get a break.

RJ's are part of the problem, though not all of it.. Priceline.com, and corporate greed, focused on the short term to the detriment of the long term (endemic in today's corporate culture) are all to blame.

What a roller coaster.

DYNASTY HVY

Not much acccording to the financials the carriers released to the press !

CE750

Last I read UAL still had better than 4 o the 5 billion in "cash" still in the bank..

That's B, no M..


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...7/ai_n21148597